Within the past few days, my wife and I both overloaded the electrical outlet in our bathrooms, presumably by overloading them. My wife was using a hair dryer and that, probably in conjunction with the hot lamp in the bathroom ceiling, was probably what did it. I plugged my outlet tester into the outlet and it was completely dead. This is a GFCI outlet, so I pressed the reset button between the sockets, then went to the fuse panel and reset the fuse that had tripped, which apparently fixed the problem.
When the same thing happened to me in the other bathroom (I had a vacuum cleaner plugged in), I assumed it was the same kind of failure. This outlet isn’t GFCI though it probably should be. When I looked at the fuse panel, there were no tripped fuse switches, and when I plugged in the outlet tester, it reported Open Hot. Just on the chance, I reset all the fuses, and now my bathroom outlet works again.
If my outlet was Open Hot, which I understand means that there’s a disconnect somewhere in the circuit, then how did resetting all the fuses fix the problem? Could resetting the GFCI switch in my wife’s bathroom, and that fuse switch have fixed the p;roblem? The wiring in these manufactured houses can be peculiar, and it’s conceivable that both bathroom outlets are on the same line. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to test my outlet to see if it was already working, before I reset all the fuses.
GFCI can also be flakey and get old. We had one in our kitchen, that would trip with some appliances like the hand mixer, just when it was plugged in. (Nowhere near a real load, not yet turned on). Sometimes they become too sensitive.
First, cheap fix if you’re a handyman, is replace the GFCI outlet with a new one. I did that with the kitchen, and it worked. Hasn’t tripped since. Meanwhile, my upstairs and downstair bathrooms are on another GFCI, and although all that’s plugged in is a nightlight and toothbrush charger, it’s been tripping erratically every few months. Maybe the electrician who wired my house got a bad batch.
(Are the outlet and heat lamp in the bathroom definitely on the same breaker circuit? Heat lamp went dead too?)
OTOH, if you tripped the breaker, it probably is the load. But then normally, that wouldn’t trip the GFCI as far as I know. Breaker trips with excess load. GFCI trips with leakage to ground (actually imbalance in current I think it was).
The GFCI outlet in my wife’s bathroom is new, in fact, if about four years can be called new.
There was a fair amount of non-code compliant wiring which we had corrected not long after we got here. For instance, multiple high load appliances like the microwave and range were on the same circuit. (Those are just examples; I don’t know which specific appliances were involved.)
Fuses (for the most part) are disposable, once they blow they are garbage. You have circuit breakers, not fuses.
GFCI trip on current leakage, which is unsafe to people. Circuit breakers trip on over-current, which is unsafe to equipment and wiring. There are combo breakers which do both.
Some GFCI outlets will trip when the breaker shuts off and need to be manually reset when the power returns.
In many houses, GFCI protect other outlets in the house where the circuit connects to the LOAD terminals on the GFCI and then continues on to another bathroom, so the 2nd bath may be protected already.
Yes. In my house, there is a GFCI outlet in the basement bathroom. The outlet in the main bathroom directly above is a continuation of the same circuit, so the outlet is protected too but not GFCI. When I notice the night light in the main bathroom is out, I have to go to the basement and reset the GFCI, which enables outlets for both rooms.
Similarly, the GFCI for my patio has completely failed and I need to replace it (the reset button is stuck). But as a result, the outlet for the deck above is also non-functional.
The exterior from outlet, the ensuite bathroom, and 2 circuits in the kitchen (to protect 4 outlets) also have GFCI outlets, so there are a number of distinct circuits. According to Holmes on Homes, multiple GFCI outlet devices on one breaker is unworkable - it will constantly trip, because each device will trigger the other device. However, all regular outlets downstream from the GFCI outlet are equally protected.
The outlet in the should be CFIC protected. There are 3 ways to protect an outlet. 1 GFIC outlet. 2 regular outlet in series and down downstream of the GFIC outlet. 3 by using a GFI circuit breaker.
If the outlets are on the same breaker as the hot lamp you may only be able to use one at a time.
In my new house and the house we moved out of I ran a separate circuit for each of the bathroom outlets and a 3rd circuit for the lights and heater.
It will be helpful in the future for you to trace out the electrical in your home. The easy way is if you know how to use a circuit tracer. With a large note pad to keep track of which circuit go where. Take an outlet and plug the tracer in. Locate the breaker going to that outlet. Then turn it off. Go back and note which outlets, lights, or appliances have lost power. The go to an outlet that is still hot and move the tracer into that outlet. Go back to the panel and turn the 1st breaker on and locate the 2nd breaker. Keep repeating until you mapped out as many breakers as possible. Note which breakers you have not found.
Now turn every breaker on, and then turn one of the unknown breakers off. Go look for any location with out power.
As a note, an electric dryer, water heater, oven or stove, and any air conditioning will be on a 2 pole breaker.
If you do not have or do not know how to use a circuit tracer the turn one breaker off at a time and note where the power goes off.
This will also give you an idea if you should require some rewiring. In my new home I had 4 bedrooms with 20 outlets and lights on one circuit. The lights dimmed when vacuuming. I split that circuit in 3 separate circuits. I also had the gas stove (10 amp draw with oven running), Toaster outlet (8 amp), Microwave (13 amps), water feature 3/4 hp pump (13.7 amps), and several light fixtures all on one 20 amp breaker. I split that circuit 3 ways. Sadly, the lights and fountain pump are still on the same breaker.
Simple math - most circuits in North America are 110V 15A. A heat element typically is in the neighbourhood of 1000W, so almost 10A. You won’t likely get away with two heating elements on the same circuit, whether it’s heat lamp and hair dryer, or kettle and toaster. Logically, the light fixture/heat lamp should not have been placed on the same circuit as the bathroom outlet which would be for a hair dryer.
OTOH, something which suddenly starts popping the breaker when it never did before in the same circumstances is a reason to be cautions. It could be as simple as the breaker weakening, or it could be other problems.
Also -
Some time around 2000 the company I worked for had the outlets in the office building all tagged with a note as to which breaker they were on. Not sure if that is now a requirement for commercial buildings, but I see a lot of places have their outlets labelled.
(In the early days the way to find the correct breaker was to turn each breaker off and on and have your partner tell you if the power went out on that outlet. Until the first PC’s became popular - I remember one day sitting at my 80286 computer and I hear successively down the corridor “Eek!”, “eek!”, “eek!” - then my computer goes black. the electricians were told after that not to just turn off random breakers with no warning.
It can’t hurt to dig up a floor plan of your house with all the outlets and light fixtures and label each for which breaker controls it, some day when you have nothing better to do.
The low capacity circuit in the master bedroom and bath has always been a problem for us, and while knowing the exact route and load on the circuit won’t necessarily fix the problem, it would help to know what other appliances are plugged into it, so we can avoid using them while using a hair dryer or space heater in the bedroom. A 15-amp circuit is ridiculously inadequate for a bedroom and bath, where one would expect people to use hair dryers, the bath to have a heat lamp, and so on. It would be worse yet if we hadn’t replaced every incandescent bulb with low-watt alternatives.
If resetting the breakers fixed the problem, then the problem was a tripped breaker. If it didn’t look tripped, the your problem is that your breakers are tripping without looking like it.
(to be clear, the tripping part isn’t the problem-- Breakers should trip when you put too much load on them; that’s their job)
But then why the “open hot” result when I tested the outlet? IME when a breaker trips, any electrical outlets on that line are completely dead, and nothing lights up on the outlet tester.
I should have mentioned that my bathroom circuit failed a couple of days prior to my wife’s.
I do not think it is required but just good engineering. When I had to locate a breaker for an outlet I always put a P-touch label on the outlet.
Lights are normally on a 15 amp breaker using #14 wire and outlets on a 20 amp breaker using #20 wire.
If a breaker trips or is turned of then the circuit is disconnected from the power panel and will have no power going to isdt. It should test as an open hot.
Friend of mine was renting out his house. The tenant started an electrical fire in one room fiddling with the outlets. The Fire department came and turned of the main breaker - my friend went to look at the problem house wiring the next day and got a serious shock. Apparently live and neutral were reversed, which could be the source of the tenant’s problem. For years, there was no apparent issues with that setup.
If the breaker popped but you can measure voltage - are you sure it’s not that someone has reversed hot and neutral? I assume a rank amateur or a lazy electrician could have switched the brass and silver wires (black and white) somewhere along the chain of outlets? At this point, we’re straying into more complex territory than I’ve had to deal with, maybe an expert can comment on this. I know there are plug gizmos with a bunch of LED’s that can tell you exactly what the wiring is doing - perhaps this would help.
But if you’re using a space heater, you certainly will risk popping the breaker if you use another heating element - that would be an overload on 15A,
I have definitely seen breakers that are not obviously popped - instead of popping to the “off” position, they budge just a little. You can feel they are not firmly on, but have to push them off then on to reset.
(My dorm room in first year university had wiring from the 1930’s. If anyone in the group of 5 rooms on that floor used another toaster or kettle while the first one was making toast - POP! Much expressive language ensued.)
By “lights” I assume you mean wired-in lights like chandeliers and ceiling lights, is that correct? Again this might be due to the peculiarities of manufactured houses, but at least two of our our circuits supply both outlets and ceiling lights. There are actually two separate circuits in our main bedroom, and they both “snake out” along opposite sides of the house into other rooms. Of course there are other circuits too, but like I said the wiring in these houses can be weird. I’ve been here almost five years, and once in awhile I still find myself reaching for the switch above and to the right of the sing when I want to run the garbage disposal. ( The switch next to the sink turns on the overhead lights, while the disposal switch is inside the cabinet under the sink.)
I don’t know if it’s against the code, but I’ve always been told that it’s not a good idea to connect both receptacles and overhead lights to the same breakers. Receptacles are more likely to trip a breaker due to overload and when it trips, you still have lights.
Never really seen this - for 120V circuits, 15A is normal. 20A is reserved for high-load areas, like the kitchen, where you may be plugging in two heating element appliances. Often, 20A outlets are indicated by one of the receptacle slots being a T-shape, since high-amp appliances that could blow a 15A breaker have one plug fin at right angles to the other.
(Note code recommends not loading a circuit for continuous use at mre than 80% of rated breaker power. So 12A 120V would be 1.8kW - assuming your voltage is 120, it could be as low as 110 or 105V sometimes. But 80% of 110V 15A is 1.3kW. )
I haven’t seen this, (IANAElectrician) but it makes less sense, since that would imply a lot of extra circuits and breakers with not a lot of load, unless you are going to snake a single circuit through half a dozen rooms just to provide power to the light fixtures. It makes more sense in a large room
like my open concept living room/dining room with 6 recessed ceiling lights. That’s plenty for one circuit, especially if it includes the chandelier also with half a dozen low-watt bulbs. (But of course with LED, all those load numbers are irrelevant).
There is a simple reason to keep outlets and lights on separate circuits. When you plug in the vacuum cleaner and turn it on you do not want the lights to flickering.
With the exception of my present house and the house I grew up in I have always seen outlets on 20 amp circuits and lights on 15 amp circuits. This house the original owner rewired and he should have never been allowed near anything electrical. The house I grew up in was nob and tube with fusses.
A properly done circuit chart in the main panel should do this. A breaker might be labeled, “Main bedroom lights + hall light”. All of mine are that way, but then I did it myself.
Before making changes on the wiring in my house once circuit said 3 bedrooms, 1/2 master bedrooms, Kitchen lights, stove, microwave outlet, toaster outlet, reading room lights, patio lights, fountain pump, outside outlet on patio.